World Heritage And The UNESCO Concept Of Cultural Diversity

The dissertation mainly discusses on the mechanism through which the concept ofCultural Diversity has influenced on the World Heritage conservation system since1946when the international governmental organization UNESCO that later formed thesystem in question was established, with the conclusions including the analysis on itsdifferent stages, patterns, approaches and impacts of this concept.Cultural diversity, as a new concept frequently mentioned in the documents andstrategies of UNESCO, has become a focal issue in the field of World Heritageconservation through the impact of the World Heritage Committee and the WorldHeritage Centre, and also a popular term in the discourse of this field, closely connectedto the development of World Heritage during the recent years. Therefore, it would behighly beneficial to understand the mechanism of its influence so that we could learnmore about the history and future development of the system, helping us to furtherimprove the culture heritage conservation in China.With the conference documents, reports and other bibliographies, the dissertationfirstly reviews the three stages of World Heritage conservation system:1946-1972thePreparation,1972-1992the Implementation of World Heritage Convention, and1992-21cn the Reflection, indicating how the concept of Cultural Diverstiy has affectedthe philosophy and practices in the WH field under the process from humanist conceptof culture to the anthropological concept. Then it further discusses the cases on GlobalStrategy, Cultural Landscape concerning Religious Sites, and Cultural Routes, to reviewthe impact of the modern Cultural Diversity concept on the system in the latest years.Finally, the dissertation concludes with the illustration of the5approaches orpatterns that UNESCO’s concept of Cultural Diversity has influenced on the WorldHeritage conservation directly or indirectly which are legislation, dissemination,resources distribution, life style promotion, and cultural exchanges, and has promotedthe World Heritage moving from the humanist paradigm to the anthropological one,with a brief further discussion on the trend of future development of World Heritagesystem and the inspiration on the Chinese cultural heritage conservation work.